Ernesto Dal Bó

In “Do the Right
Thing:” The Effects of Moral Suasion on Cooperation, Journal of Public Economics 117, 2014
(with Pedro Dal Bó),
we study experimentally whether and how moral appeals can help sustain
cooperation. Moral appeals cause a transitory
increase in cooperation in basic public good games, but in the presence of
punishment instruments moral appeals have persistent effects. We find that
moral suasion works both through expectation and preference-shifting
effects. Expectation effects imply the presence of a “moral social amplifier.”
PDF here

In Strengthening
State Capabilities: The Role of Financial Incentives in the Call to Public
Service, Quarterly Journal of
Economics 128(3), August 2013, (with Fred Finan and Martín
Rossi) we report on a recruitment drive in Mexico’s
federal government which included exogenous variation of wage postings and
job characteristics. We document the anatomy of the applicant pool along
many dimensions including previous earnings, cognitive skills, personality
traits, and motivation, we estimate the impact of
higher wages on the quality and size of the applicant pool and the ability
of the recruiter to fill vacancies, yielding the first experimental
estimate of the elasticity of the labor supply facing the firm. We also
estimate the effect of distance to job and characteristics of the job
environment on job acceptance rates. PDF of the paper. PDF of Online
Appendix

In Self-Esteem, Moral Capital, and Wrongdoing, Journal of the European Economic
Association 11(3), June 2013, (with Marko Terviö), we develop an infinite
horizon, single-self, model of endogenous moral standards featuring
self-reinforcing patterns of virtue and corruption. We develop applications
to study why morally weaker types may self-select into high temptation
activities (e.g., politics), and how extrinsic deterrence schemes may
change once endogenous intrinsic motivation is considered. We also use the
model to study the dynamics of beliefs about self (“moral capital”) and wrongdoing
in a population in demographic steady state. PDF version

In Conflict and
Policy in General Equilibrium: Insights from a Standard Trade Model
(2012, Chapter 25 in the Oxford
Handbook of the Economics of Peace and Conflict, with Pedro Dal Bó) we revisit the “Workers, Warriors and Criminals”
framework of conflict in a small open economy to derive further results and
rank policy responses. PDF version.

In Term Length
and The Effort of Politicians,Review
of Economic Studies 78(4), October 2011, (with Martín Rossi) we exploit two natural
experiments in the Argentine legislature to assess the causal effect of
term length on various measures of politicians’ legislative effort. PDF version

In Workers, Warriors and Criminals: Social Conflict
in General Equilibrium,Journal of the European Economic
Association9(4),
August 2011, (with Pedro Dal Bó) we study social conflict in
its connection to the appropriation of resources. We show that not every
wealth-increasing shock (or policy) will reduce conflict. What is critical
is the factor intensity of the industry initially affected. The model
integrates the effects of income shocks on the opportunity costs and
predatory incentives involved in conflict, to explain empirical patterns of
crime and civil war. The model accounts for various populist and
redistributive policies, and for resistance to
reform. PDF version

In A Model of Spoils Politics, American Journal of Political
Science 53(1),
January 2009, (with Robert Powell), we study spoils politics
as a coercive signaling game where an informed party seeks to co-opt a
challenger and study conditions leading to inefficient conflict and to the
endogenous resolution of the asymmetric information that causes conflict. PDF version

In Political Dynasties,Review of Economic
Studies 76(1), January 2009, (with Pedro Dal Bó and Jason Snyder), we study political
dynasties in the US Congress since 1789. We document various facts in
connection with the historical evolution of dynasties and the profile of
dynastic politicians. We also study the self-perpetuation of political
elites and analyze the connection between political competition and the
prevalence of dynastic politicians. PDF version

In Reputation When Threats and Transfers Are
Available, Journal of Economics & Management Strategy,
16(3), Fall 2007, (with Pedro Dal Bó and Rafael Di Tella), we study how pressure groups and extorters may
combine threats and payments (offers or requests) to influence targets,
while threats become endogenously credible. Transfers allow the long-lived
player to benefit from reputation even in arbitrarily short repeated games
and under low priors on his being tough. PDF
version

(This and the following article are an electronic
version of articles published in the American Journal of Political Science,
and the Journal of Economics and Management Strategy. Complete
citation information for the final version of each paper, as published in
the print edition, is available on the Blackwell Synergy online delivery
service, accessible via the journals website at http://www.blackwell-synergy.com.)

In Bribing Voters, American Journal of
Political Science51(4), October 2007, I study the optimal ways to
influence voting decisions. I derive implications for influence over
legislatures and boards, and analyze when voting should be made secret. PDF
versionExtension with expressive voters under uncertainty

In Bribes,
Punishment, and Judicial Immunity (2007, in Transparency
International’s Global Corruption Report, with Pedro Dal Bó and Rafael Di Tella) we revisit the theoretical links between
violence, corruption, and the quality of public officials established in
our “Plata o Plomo?”
framework, and document the cross-country empirical association between
conflict, law and order, corruption, and bureaucratic quality. PDF here.

In Corruption and Inefficiency: Theory and Evidence
from Electric Utilities,Journal of Public Economics
91(5-6), June 2007, (with Martín Rossi) we find that corruption in the
country is strongly associated with higher inefficiency of firms, even when
controlling by regulatory regime, ownership type, and other important
forces varying by country and time. PDF
version

In Regulatory Capture: A Review, Oxford
Review of Economic Policy 22, August 2006, I provide an overview of
theories and evidence of regulatory capture. PDF
version

In Committees With Supermajority Voting Yield
Commitment With Flexibility,Journal of Public Economics 90(4),
May 2006, I show that in the presence of dynamic inconsistency a committee
deciding under a supermajority voting rule will optimally balance
commitment and flexibility. PDF version

In Capture by Threat,Journal of Political
Economy 111(5), October 2003, (with Rafael Di Tella)
we study coercive influence by a special interest. The coercive nature of
influence makes the efforts of a defending agent (the political party) only
mitigating. Thus, under otherwise symmetric pressures and even when having
a strict preference for doing the right thing, a political authority yields
to socially suboptimal interest group influence with positive probability.
In addition, factors that enhance capture by threat worsen the quality of
politicians.

This page is not an official publication
of the Haas School of Business. It has not been reviewed or approved by the
Haas School of Business or the University of California, Berkeley. The page
author is solely responsible for the contents of this page.